


my life got flipped, turned upside down

by urdearestmom



Series: adventures in parenting [5]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, and a little vague discussion of adult themes, lol i hope y'all like this one, some suggestiveness?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29342226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urdearestmom/pseuds/urdearestmom
Summary: She’s hot. It’s the middle of October and somehow, for some reason, she’s hot. At this point El doesn’t even know how to dress herself anymore. One second she’s cold (duh, because it’s October), and the next she’s sweating buckets and feels the need to peel off every layer she’s wearing, which she can’t exactly do when she’s standing in the middle of a store.God, she’s so over it.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Series: adventures in parenting [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155287
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38





	my life got flipped, turned upside down

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone i am back!! yes with a new random fic instead of updating the one i was working on months ago lmao 
> 
> (i'm working on it tho)
> 
> anyway, i was watching something the other day when the idea for this hit me and i thought it might be cool to write out <3

_ October 1999 _

She’s hot. It’s the middle of October and somehow, for  _ some reason _ , she’s hot. At this point El doesn’t even know how to dress herself anymore. One second she’s cold (duh, because it’s  _ October _ ), and the next she’s sweating buckets and feels the need to peel off every layer she’s wearing, which she can’t exactly do when she’s standing in the middle of a store. 

God, she’s so over it. She is, of course, incredibly excited for the new direction her life will soon be taking, especially after all the time she and Mike spent trying to get here, but the next four weeks until her due date seem like they’re going to be excruciatingly long and she just wants this to be done already. With an irritated huff, she shrugs out of her jacket and throws it into the shopping cart Max is pushing. 

Her best friend eyes her warily. “You okay?” 

El’s eyebrows pull together as she frowns. “I’m hot, my legs hurt, and my back hurts. Just not feeling great.”

Max stops her. “We can leave, El, seriously,” she says. “I don’t want to be here if you don’t feel good.” 

She knows Max is being sincere, but it only irritates her. The two of them never really see each other anymore since the redhead moved back to California. This is Max’s last full day in Indiana before she flies home, and El had just wanted to spend it having a fun time together like they used to. 

“No, we’re supposed to be hanging out,” she says, and keeps walking down the aisle of shirts that don’t fit her anymore. 

Max had come down to visit, knowing that El was nearing the end of her pregnancy and wanting to see her before the baby came. She’d spent a few days in Indianapolis, sleeping on the couch in Mike and El’s small and ugly apartment, and then the three of them had made the drive out to Hawkins for the weekend before Max had to fly back on Monday. It had been pretty great so far, but today was just clearly not El’s day. 

“If you’re sure,” Max murmurs behind her. 

They’re in the massive Wal-Mart that had opened up in the area where Starcourt Mall had once been, because Max had made an offhand comment that she was looking to buy a blouse for a job interview she had gotten. El had decided they could make the whole thing a shopping trip, being as her mother-in-law had insisted on giving her fifty dollars to spend. 

“Make sure you use it for yourself,” Karen had said. “Being a mom is rewarding but it’s a lot of work and you deserve a little treat.” 

If this had been a few years ago El would have tried to refuse, but by now she knows the elder Mrs. Wheeler enough to know that arguing with her about it would be a waste of energy. Still, she doesn’t know what to spend it on, so she’s wandering aimlessly through the racks of clothes. Max has already found a few shirts she wants and is now accompanying El through the store with a story about some customer who’s starting to be a regular at the burger joint she works at.

“-so then he goes up to this other guy and- are you even listening?” 

El’s staring at another woman that’s further down the aisle, casually flicking through the dresses. She’s wearing regular clothes, just jeans and a cute sweater, but it makes El so  _ upset  _ to look at her that she has to turn around and walk the other way. 

Max calls after her. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

El keeps walking. Her eyes burn, and is she really crying over some random person at Wal-Mart wearing jeans and a sweater? What is wrong with her? 

“El!” Max manages to stop her in an empty crafts aisle, stocked with all the kinds of balls of yarn you could imagine. El’s fully crying now, unable to keep the tide of emotion locked inside. 

“Hey, what happened?” Asks Max carefully. “Are you okay?” 

After nearly fifteen years of friendship, Max knows that El doesn’t easily cry. Only when something is truly overwhelming and upsetting does that side of her come out, and so she knows Max isn’t going to let it go. 

“I just- I feel so  _ ugly _ ,” she admits. Max’s eyebrows shoot up. “I saw a lady looking at the dresses and she wasn’t even dressed fancy but she was skinny. And pretty!” 

It had been something that niggled at the back of her mind ever since she’d had to start wearing looser clothes. Every time she looks in the mirror, she feels proud that her body is capable of growing a whole human being. She knows that it is incredible and a miracle and all of those great words, but it comes with a dark stab of ugliness. Every time she looks, she’s bigger, and she fits into less and less of her clothes. She has these bright red marks all along the bottom of her belly that are almost painful to look at. She and Mike are less intimate than they ever have been before, and while she knows he’s probably just freaked out about doing something to harm the child they waited so long for, she can’t help but wonder if it’s because he doesn’t think she’s beautiful anymore now that she’s fat. 

El relays all of this to Max and then heaves a big sigh. “I look like a whale,” she groans. “And I don’t think I’m ever going to look the same.” 

The first thing Max does is pull her into a hug. It doesn’t do anything to assuage her fears and insecurities, but it does make her feel comforted enough to stop crying and wipe her face. Then Max speaks. 

“First of all, you’re not fat, and you don’t look like a whale. You look pregnant, which is not a bad thing,” she states. “Second, even if you were fat there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, you know? People have different body types.”

This is another thing El already knows, but it’s hard to feel okay with it when all the people in magazines and movies and TV are skinny and perfect and get called pretty. 

“Third,” Max continues, “I don’t really want to think about Mike in any way to do with sex but if you’re worried about that then you need to talk to him. He’s a dumbass, not a mind reader.” 

At that El has to laugh. “Stop insulting my husband,” she says jokingly. 

Max rolls her eyes in her customary way. “If he was less annoying, maybe I would,” she answers, and grabs the shopping cart again. El follows as she walks out of the aisle, feeling a weight lifted from her chest. Talking with Max is always so good; it truly is amazing what the power of female friendship can do. 

“Now,” Max says again, “I have an idea for what you can buy…”

* * *

El tries not to think about it too much when she goes to bed that night, just letting herself be comforted by the familiar weight of Mike’s body against her back, his legs intertwined with hers and his arm slung over her. His hand rests on her belly as it usually does now, as if to remind himself that she’s still here and that their child is still here. That they’re both safe. 

She falls asleep pretty quickly, lulled into unconsciousness by the feeling of his steady breaths on the back of her neck, and when she wakes up in the morning she resolves to talk to him about her problem when they get home. She turns over slowly to face him, trying not to disturb him as she scooches toward the edge of the bed to make room for her belly between them. 

He’s still the prettiest person she knows, and watching him sleep is one of her guilty pleasures. His face is calm and peaceful, a complete 180 from the ball of anxiety that he usually is, and it makes El immensely happy to see him at rest when he’s so stressed all the time while awake. He likes to sleep on his stomach with one arm under the pillow, his head pushed into it, and for some reason El thinks it makes him look younger than he is. He almost looks like a little boy and it makes her feel all fuzzy inside. 

Most of the time he doesn’t catch her, but sometimes he cracks an eye open without her noticing and watches her back. 

“Good morning,” he says, his voice rough and deep with sleep. El loves his morning voice, it gives her tingles. 

“Good morning,” she says in return, and smiles. She really does love this man too much for her own good, doesn’t she?

They leave not too long after to pick up Max from her mom’s house and take her to the airport on their way back to the city, and El almost cries  _ again _ when she has to say goodbye.

“Come visit again soon, okay?” She pleads. “I’ll miss you.” 

Max steps back from her. “Of course!” She exclaims. “I can’t wait to meet the little one. You better name her after me,” she adds jokingly. 

El sees Mike huff out of the corner of her eye but she humours their friend. “We’ll think about it.” 

Max walks off into security with a mock salute towards Mike, and then the two of them make their way out the doors when they can’t see her anymore. 

“Do you think it’s a girl?” He asks her in the car.

The music is low and El has been thinking of how to start the conversation she needs to have with Mike, so she startles a little when he speaks. “Does it matter?” 

Mike shrugs, one of his hands drifting down to grab hers. “I don’t care what it is, I’m just curious.” 

“I think it’s a boy,” she answers. “I don’t know why, I just have a feeling.”

He nods. “I had a dream that it was a boy, too.” 

She raises her eyebrows and squints at him mockingly, something she picked up from Max and Lucas and that she knows he hates. “So you’re psychic now?” 

“Haha,” he replies drily. 

The rest of the drive back to their small apartment is uneventful and El spends it psyching herself up to talk. It’s just Mike, after all. He’s her best friend in the entire world, her confidante, her husband. He loves her and she knows it, but she’s still scared to open up to him about this. She’s not sure what he’ll tell her. Maybe he’ll agree. 

She acts as though all is well until half an hour later, when they’re both stretched out on the couch with the TV on quietly. Neither of them is watching it; all that’s been on lately is reruns of fucking Fresh Prince and El is  _ so  _ done with it. It feels like she’s seen it all seven times over. Instead, Mike has his head in her lap, his big eyes focused on the roundness that is their baby. She can’t even see his face over it but he’s been doing it since they found out she was pregnant, so she already knows. Her hands are resting on top of it, feeling nothing but herself. The baby must be sleeping because it’s usually very active. 

“Mike,” she says suddenly. “Can I ask you something?” 

He moves forward and presses a kiss to the bottom of her belly, then sits up and looks at her. “What’s up?” 

He looks rumpled and adorable and El just wants to kiss his stupid, pretty face and forget about everything that worries her, but Max’s advice is ringing in her ears. This is going to stick with her if she doesn’t get it out. 

Her eyes start to water as she tries to speak. “I feel sad,” she tells him, her voice wavering. His face immediately turns concerned. 

“Why are you sad? What’s wrong?” He’s holding her hands now, rubbing his thumbs over her wrists, and it helps a little to calm her nerves. His mere presence has always been a comfort since the day she met him, although she didn’t let him touch her then. 

“I’m huge!” She wails. “None of my clothes fit me, and I can barely walk and I have these  _ ugly  _ marks and all I do is watch the goddamn Fresh Prince!” 

Mike furrows his brows in confusion, and El finds it so adorable she almost wants to smack the confusion right out of him. Wow, first crying over some woman in Wal-Mart yesterday and now her husband being so cute it’s annoying… her emotions are all over the place. 

“Why is that making you sad?” He asks her, and  _ Lord,  _ shouldn’t he know? Isn’t it obvious that she’s not what she used to be? 

The baby suddenly kicks her but neither of them makes a move, even though she knows he felt it too. 

El takes a deep breath before she speaks again, trying to level herself. “I don’t look how I used to. And we don’t do stuff like we used to, either, and I’m scared it’s because you think I’m ugly now,” she admits. She doesn’t look fully at him for a moment, afraid of what truths she might see reflected in his eyes. 

“El,” he says quietly, and his tone of voice is so upset that she has to look up. Mike looks like he might cry too, judging by his expression. He looks pained. “Have I done something to make you think that?” 

She shakes her head quickly. “Not really, it’s just… how come you never want to do stuff with me anymore? It’s always me that starts it and I don’t even remember the last time I did that.” 

Suddenly he starts to look embarrassed. “It’s gonna sound stupid but it’s the complete opposite of what you’re thinking.”

El’s the confused one now, unsure of what he means. “What?” 

He rubs the back of his neck, his telltale sign that he’s nervous or embarrassed. “What I mean is that I’ve, like, never been more attracted to you than I am now. Swear on my life I’ve taken more cold showers in the last two months than I have since I was seventeen.”

“So why-” 

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or feeling pressured,” he rushes to say. “I know how tired you are and I can’t imagine how it feels to be you right now, so I didn’t want to make it worse.” 

“You’re so stupid,” she responds, starting to smile. 

Mike smiles back. “Yeah, well, you’re the one who said yes to marrying me and having a kid with me. You’ve had plenty of chances to run the other way,” he teases. 

They sit in silence for a minute, taking in each other’s presence, before El speaks again. “So you don’t think I’m ugly?” 

Mike looks offended, and he  _ sounds _ offended too when he answers. “I have  _ never _ thought you were ugly!” He says. “You had a shaved head and I had a crush on you, for god’s sake.”

He sinks back into the couch, letting go of the tension in his body. “You’ve always been beautiful and you’re even more beautiful now,” he states, looking directly at her. She reaches out for his hands again. “Your body is amazing for how it does this. That’s our kid in there, you know? It’s crazy.” 

El can tell he’s not done yet as he slides closer to her, lowering his hands until they rest on her sides. His eyes are teasing her. “There’s also something incredibly appealing about knowing that you look like this because I put a baby in you. Biological instinct, I think,” he finishes, and then he kisses her. It’s soft and it doesn’t last very long, but behind it is his eternal promise; the one he made all those years ago when he gave her friends and a name and a place to stay. He cares for her, and it’s never been or will be about what she looks like. 

Mike doesn’t give her time to react before he’s talking again, ever the chatterbox. “Also, if it makes you feel any better, I have stretch marks too.” 

El wrinkles her nose. “How? I thought they only came from having babies.” 

He stands up and pulls his shirt over his head, surprising her into a laugh. He’s not usually one for stripping in the living room, after all. “Look,” he says, turning around and pushing down on the waistband of his jeans, and El can see faint silvery lines on his lower back. She’s not sure how she missed them before. 

“How come you have those?” She asks again, watching as he kicks the shirt into a corner and comes back to sit next to her again. 

“Remember how short I was when we met?” He asks. She nods. They used to be the same height. “Now think about how much I grew in the two years after that. I grew really fast, so that happened. Your marks aren’t ugly, okay? They just show that you grew.” 

She nods again, taking in the reassurance. She still doesn’t think they’re at all nice to look at, but she feels better knowing that Mike has some too and it doesn’t suddenly make her think he’s any less handsome than he was before. 

“Thank you,” she tells him. Max was right, she feels much less worried about how she looks now that she’s talked it out with Mike and heard his side. 

“I love you more than anything,” he replies, and pecks her lips with a smile on his own. Then he drops his head into her lap again and does the same to her belly. “And I love you too, little one. Daddy can’t wait to meet you.” 

They stay that way for a little while, Mike talking to the baby while El runs her fingers through his hair, and it’s peaceful. In comparison to yesterday, El’s never felt better.

She’s still really tired of the Fresh Prince reruns, though.

“Can we do something else?” 

“Like what?” 

El sighs. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says lightly. “You’re already shirtless, mind if I join you?” 

He laughs and says yes, of course she can, and why would he mind that? 

It reminds El that everything will be just fine as long as he’s by her side. 

**Author's Note:**

> el is a sweetie i love her. 
> 
> anyway this is not to be taken as though you should depend on a man's opinion for your self-confidence ladies bc you should NOT!!!!!! but i think when you're in a relationship, especially with the level of commitment that these two have, you want to feel wanted by your partner and that's what el's lacking a bit here. it feeds into some insecurities she already has
> 
> hope you liked it and lemme know your thoughts!! <3 hmu on tumblr @urdearestmom if you would like i promise i'll answer


End file.
